“We explorers are quite ill at ease
What’s the problem? We’ve run out of seas!”
“Well you folks are in luck
There’s a deal I’ve just struck
Wanna see if the moon’s made of cheese?”

Event: President Eisenhower signs the National Aeronautics and Space Act, creating NASA
Year: 1958
Learn more: NASA

When he came to where river meets lake
Cleaveland said, “Let’s a settlement make”
But the city he’d spurn
Not to ever return
Was it all just a giant mistake?

Event: Surveyors from the Connecticut Land Company lay out a plan for a city where the Cuyahoga River flows into Lake Erie. They decide to name it after their leader, Moses Cleaveland (yes, Cleaveland, not Cleveland).
Year: 1796
Learn more: Moses Cleaveland
Cleveland

When it seemed that things couldn’t get worse
Fate had one final trick to disburse
Xuanzong’d get clean away
But without Yang Guifei
Now his sorrow lives on in Bai’s verse

Event: While fleeing the capital, Emperor Xuanzong is forced to order the death of his beloved consort Yang Guifei in order to prevent his troops from mutinying. Later, their love affair is made the subject of the legendary work The Song of Everlasting Sorrow by the poet Bai Juyi.
Year: 756
Learn more: Yang Guifei
An Lushan Rebellion

Standing tall with his four ships of black
Matthew Perry sought not to attack
No, instead he did bring
A much scarier thing:
Tides of change that could not be held back

Event: Commodore Matthew Perry sails the “black ships” (USS Mississippi, USS Plymouth, USS Saratoga, and USS Susquehanna) into Edo Bay, bringing a symbolic end to Japan’s centuries-old policy of sakoku, in which contact with the outside world (and especially the West) was kept to a minimum
Year: 1853
Learn more: Matthew Perry (no, not Matthew Perry)
Black Ships
Sakoku

Independence? Not noteworthy seen
By a land still quite fond of their Queen
What they do celebrate
Is their unified state
When one Canada came on the scene

Event: The British North America Act of 1867 joins the Province of Canada with the colonies of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick to form a single dominion, called Canada
Year: 1867
Learn more: Canadian Confederation
Constitution Act
Canada Day